OMG, I can't believe that this is just an indie system! Took me a good 5 minutes to finally find it on Google. There's one guy passing by my city, who lead this one-shot session. I can't believe how amazing the session was, and how much I loved it the shared narrative system. Serously, I can't describe how much I loved it! Trying to find a new narrator right now to start a new session. Someone who actually lives here, at my city x( Is there a way to donate a small ammount to the author (unfortanatelly, I don't have much money xD)

Don't let the cover art scare you off. This is a surprising game with an unusual card-based resolution mechanic. If Scion was too gonzo for you, and Part-Time Gods not gonzo enough, you might like this. If nothing else, there is an interesting cosmology here that's worth a read.

Let me begin this review by saying that I have not played Nine Worlds at this time, and I will mainly comment on the production values and the creativity of the game. As such, I cannot comment on how balanced the various mechanics are. I can, however, comment on how it is an excellent read and well worth your time and money (especially considering that is currently available for free).

Nine Worlds is, at a glance, not highly original. The influences of Mage: the Ascension are fairly obvious, as well as those of Michael Moorcock's writings. However, it is not the dark fantasy those influences would appear to imply. In fact, the stories it tells are largely closer to light-hearted pulp fiction, with an eye towards the wonders of magic and science. In Nine Worlds, the players assume the roles of Archons, people with extraordinary talent and influence over fate thrown into a larger world of godly beings and their conflicts. The science of Earth is mostly a weaving of fiction and truth, but the powers of Archons and other potent beings of the Nine Worlds (Earth, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Hades, from innermost to outermost) largely trump the knowledge of science. Archons are told about the truth by Prometheus, the titan ruling over Earth, and left to their own devices. In this newfound realm, they forge tales and melodramas of demigods, until they find a task that they can claim to be their last, or their legend is prematurely ended by death or oblivion.

Nine Worlds uses playing cards for conflict resolution. As someone who likes playing card games, I have often found the use of playing cards in tabletop RPGs a gimmick, rarely worth replacing dice or diceless systems with. Nine Worlds is a refreshing change of pace in this regard. Each PC has three groups of stats: Virtues, Urges and Muses. Each player also has a deck of playing cards, Jokers included. There are two Virtues, which determine how you approach (with mortal skill and luck or with supernatural displays) each conflict and the general status quo of the Nine Worlds, as well as how many cards you draw in a conflict, and four Urges, each of which correspond to a suit of cards and have their own powers (creative, destructive, transformative and static). These remain largely static, and while they can be improved, this does not happen as often as altering the Muses. The Muses are each tasks that a PC can accomplish and contains enough dramatic conflict. Throughout gameplay, or even a single conflict, these Muses will rise and fall in value, and they add cards to a player's hand and determine how much and in what ways the PCs improve when resolved. In its most basic, the players draw a number of cards from their deck equal to the ratings of their applicable Virtue and Muses summed up, see how many cards you have of each Urge's corresponding suit, and add the Urge's value. If you beat your opponent's number, you get to determine how the conflict ends. The players also have many ways of influencing these values, but the basic system remains the same. If one of the player's Virtues is reduced to 0, he can sacrifice a Muse or accept death. If he has no Muses left, he automatically dies. The character sheets have little room for customization, so the tasks the PC has as his Muses become the main way of determining what the characters are about. As a result trying to powergame the system is largely a narrative affair.

The setting itself is largely minimal in its mechanical influence, but it is also well-written, well-detailed and well-suited to modification. The backstory of the Nine Worlds is a retelling of the war between the gods and the titans of the Greek mythology, with the personae and the details modified to fit the game. Archons are the spanner in the works of the scenario, their influence determining the ultimate fates of the Eternals and the titans. While an Archon might not want to be involved in the melodrama around them, the nature of their Muses ensure they will be drawn into the thick of things. Several of the prominent figures in Greek mythology also get the Nine Worlds treatment, but many are left to the game master's discretion and imagination. If, like me, you are not a big fan of pre-written settings, the game mechanics are also suited to creating your own epic melodramas, but the setting is worth a read for idea mining, at the least.

Aside from the cover and the page decorations, the presence of artwork is largely minimal. While you do not necessarily feel their absence, as the artwork is mostly black and white and not always evocative of the writing, it does lead to the book being a bit sparse. Still, the artwork that does fit fits very well, and the writing largely carries the book well enough on its own.

For a free game, Nine Worlds is of undeniable quality, and worth giving a shot. For me, it does not compare to such games as Unisystem, Mutants & Masterminds and the major influence on the game, Mage: the Ascension, but I did have fun reading it, and I believe I would have fun playing it. It does have several assumptions in its mechanics that prevent it from becoming truly universal, and thus might not be suited to every group. But if you like epic stories, if you like melodramatic narratives and if you like pulp fiction, you will not regret the time you spend on Nine Worlds.

I can't believe this remarkable game is nearly ten years old. It seems like only yesterday, the original version was one of my first e-book purchases. Now the Revenged version is available, and for only $10. This is one of the best deals on the site, and one of the best games on the site.

Dust Devils is a Western game, with a relatively simple poker-hand resolution. But the important thing about the game is the Devil mechanic.

Each character has a Devil that both drives them onward and torments them: it can be their past as a bandit and assassin, it can be whiskey, it can be resentment over broken promises to their tribe, it can be family trouble or money trouble, but whatever it is, the game gives it mechanical weight. And most importantly, as your character struggles in their situations, the Devil helps them - after all, in the bleak Western style that Dust Devils recreates, it's the grit and determination of the character that matters, not necessarily their talent. Then as the Devil helps your character, you are also eventually driven into the endgame, a showdown between the worst your Devil has to offer and your character's determination. You will eventually have to face your worst fears, your worst flaws, in this game, and you might very well fail to overcome them.

Dust Devils strikes a middle ground between short-form story games and interminable play-this-game-forever campaigns. There are options for picking up a new Devil after you resolve the first, and continuing the play the same character, but really, this game is about the most important conflict in your character's life, and what it means for the frontier.

Add-ons give options for Le Carre-esque espionage, another ideal area for this game, since in this bleak form of espionage novel, there are no James Bond heroics - there may be only one shot fired in the whole novel, and it's a suicide. In the end, the game puts values like loyalty and justice to the test. It really is like nothing else out there. I have played it many times with many different players - nobody has walked away from it without having a new appreciation for what can be accomplished with the role-playing game form.

44: A Game of Automatic Fear was a fantastic little game of Paranoia that worked great as a one shot for my group. I'm a huge fan of old sci fi like the Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits and the mood that this game set really put our group into that sort of mood entirely along with a healthy dose of McCarthyism. I would have happily paid for this game so the fact that it was available for free just made it that much more sweet.

Dust Devils is a rules-light storytelling game that focuses on tales of redemption in the Old West. It takes role-playing in several unusual directions, but it is sufficiently clever that everyone should at least give it a read!

Characters have a mix of quantitative and descriptive characteristics. The most important is amongst the latter: the Devil, which is the ugly side of their personality or past that they are trying to fight: appropriate examples include any of the seven mortal sins.

The game is essentially storytelling until a conflict arises. During conflicts, the object is to build the best poker hand; the interesting twist is that a character’s statistics, past, and (especially) Devil determine the resources available for constructing that hand. In essence, this works like a dice pool mechanic, because “stronger” characters receive more opportunities for success but have no guarantees of victory.

A second twist is that the conflict’s Narrator is the player with the single highest card in their poker hand, who need be neither the GM or the victor. The narration is fairly free, although the winner must achieve their goals, and the “Harm” to each character is fixed by the cards. Once one of a player character’s attributes reaches zero, their end is near. The player automatically becomes Narrator of their final conflict and gets some bonuses to help ensure a memorable end, including harming other characters and also redeeming them.

The book contains a fair amount of advice (as well as a sample scenario), which is quite useful given the game’s unique goals. Every character will die, and players need to buy in to this to enjoy it. It’s also a collaborative game – although there is a “Dealer,” who sets up some of the story, every player can become Narrator during conflicts. And finally, it is an antagonistic game – player characters can easily face off against each other, and some groups won’t enjoy that.

The book also contains a handy guide to Western history and good movies, novels, and characters that can inspire a Dust Devils game. Finally, this updated edition also includes three variant rules and settings, which port the game to new genres. These include Deathwish, about conflicted spies in the Cold War, RONIN, about warriors in feudal Japan, and Concrete Jungles, about unsavory urban characters. The first and last work well; RONIN is a good idea (especially given the connections between samurai films and Westerns), but the idea of resolving samurai duels with poker hands just doesn’t work for me.

In summary, Dust Devils is a unique, well-constructed rules-light game tailored to a very specific – but compelling – kind of story. Provided your group will buy into this type of story, you can tell some truly memorable stories of devils and redemption.

Note: I received a free review copy (in pdf form) of this title through DriveThruRPG.com.

This is the new updated version of Dust Devils, entitled Revenged. Matt Snyder, the creator of Dust Devils; has updated the rules added some interesting features and generally made the game a lot more enjoyable.

If you like Westerns, Cowboys and Indian's, this game will appeal to you a lot. With a very narrative/cinematic flavour, players get to literally write the stroy of their character as game progresses. So it will also appeal to those who enjoy descriptive roleplaying, building up a character through the collective story told.

One of the new features, is the ability to adapt the game to other settings. Included in the book, are guides to create spy/espionage (Deathwish), japanese samurai (Ronin) or a neo noir (Concrete Angels) style of settings. So now your not limited to the wild west, there are options to create a variety of settings for your players.

At $10, it is a great buy to add a little change of pace to a gaming group.

Now, I've never seen a tabletop game based on poker before. I've tried my hand at writing a homebrew one based upon blackjack when I didn't anticipate having dice on a trip (which was really, really, really bad). I've also seen a couple based upon blackjack (they turned out better), and I've seen some with entirely unrelated systems made up just for them (again, better than my blackjack one).

The interesting thing about Dust Devils, though, is that it has heavy cinematic elements. It's not the most cinematic system I've ever seen, but it probably ranks up near the top. Character roleplaying is encouraged, and the rules are loose enough to permit anything and tight enough to feel comfortable.

Ultimately, for $10, you could do a lot with this book. However, if you want a full-tables-and-lists game, look elsewhere, since the simplicity here does not lend itself to giant tables filled with ten-foot-poles and rope. Instead, it works based on conflict, plain and simple, and character development.

Characters in Dust Devils are not intended to be permanent, either, so even the best character in the world will get a bum hand then be sent to his "end", be it a gunfight or retirement of less violent means.

I give Dust Devils a 5 just for its unique nature and originality, and the fact that it should be able to get any group thinking about characters, not guns or swords or artifacts.